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The tea party is mad. Although that might seem as obvious as telling you that the sun came up today, the source of the current tea party anger makes things interesting.

It’s the Republican leadership in both the Indiana Senate and the House that has been ticking the tea party off almost daily of late. The discontent centers on what some believe is too little action on conservative social issues, and too much spending on government programs, from the likes of House Speaker Brian Bosma and Senate President David Long.

“We have a supermajority that we elected to do something and they’ve just punted the ball,” said Monica Boyer, president of Silent No More, a tea party group in Kosciusko County. “The Indiana legislature is spending like drunken sailors and there is a lot of unhappiness out here.”

Boyer and others pointed to the legislature’s embrace of plans to subsidize improvements at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and to give tax breaks to casinos, and the lack of action on bills to expand gun rights. The biggest complaint, though, stems from the decision by Republican legislative leaders to shelve, for now, Gov. Mike Pence’s proposed income tax cut -- a cut that would save the typical Indiana family about $200 a year.

“It seems like they are watching out for everyone except for the moms like me and the families like mine,” Boyer said of the legislature. “For my family (the tax cut) is a big deal. We believe we can spend that money better than the state government.”

Many of us are cheering the moderate and measured leadership, particularly from Bosma, displayed during this legislative session. And many of us appreciate the legislature’s decision to question Pence’s tax cut plan. But on a recent evening, representatives from roughly 30 Indiana tea party groups held a conference call to bemoan the legislature’s actions. Many of them harshly criticized what they see as a pattern of Republicans campaigning as conservatives but not governing in the same way.

“People are surprised,” said Jim Bratten of Evansville, state coordinator with Indiana Tea Party Patriots. “They saw such gains among Republicans in the legislature and many assumed that meant more conservative things would be done. That’s not the case. There are a lot of questions floating around and people are not happy.”

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Bratten pointed to frustration with a House budget that restores some of the recent cuts to public education, as well as what appears to be a hesitancy to end the state’s participation in Common Core educational standards. After years of tough budget cuts at the Statehouse he is tired of seeing legislative Republicans soften their anti-spending rhetoric. It’s particularly irritating, he said, at a time when the GOP controls seven of every 10 seats in the General Assembly and has the votes to pass anything it wants.

And, he warned, the frustration is certain to spark more of the tea party-backed GOP primaries that have scared so many Republican officeholders in recent years. He and others don’t seem concerned that such primary battles have often hampered Republicans in general elections, and that tea party dogma has damaged the Republican Party’s overall brand.

Closer to home, Central Indiana tea party advocates are upset with a bill to ask voters in Marion and Hamilton counties to vote on a tax increase to expand the area’s transit system. Dwight Lile, co-founder of the Constitutional Patriots in Carmel, said he and others are beginning to plan primary challenges against some Central Indiana Republican lawmakers because, “Some people need to be reminded that they represent the people — or at least they are supposed to.”

The discontent among a faction of the GOP base has to be a concern for leaders who know that an overly conservative agenda would turn off many general-election voters. More than anything, it serves as a reminder that, in politics, absolute control rarely comes without unique challenges.